The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra Movie Review

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Dr Paul Armstrong and his wife Betty head to a remote cottage in search of a meteor made of the rare super-element Atmosphereum. Nearby, the scheming Dr Roger Fleming is searching for the Lost Skeleton of Cadavra, an evil, telepathic pile of bones with desires to rule the world, that just happens to require Atmosphereum to become re-animated. An alien couple, Kro-Bar and Lattis, crash their ship whereby their killer pet mutant escapes, they too require

Atmosphereum to power their ship. There is also Animala, created by Dr Fleming using the aliens transmutatron device, she is a sexy half woman, half animal dancing beatnik.

The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra is a parody of 1950s b-grade horror and sci-fi pics. The makers show that they really know their material well, wooden acting, not so special effects(a rubber suited mutant, and the visible fishing line controlling the skeleton), convoluted dialogue and logic gaps are all the elements needed to make an accurate and consistently funny send up of a by-gone era in films.

For the most part, The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra is hilarious, hitting the mark so close as to make one think they are actually watching an original b-movie. Where the film falters however, is when the film strays from being a parody and enters the realm of silliness. This may sound odd to a film that is supposed to be silly, but there is a difference between being silly as a play on the films it parodies, and being silly for the sake of silliness. This is mostly evident in the words spoken by the skeleton, they just don't quite seem in place with the rest of the film, particularly towards the end when it forces the alien couple to dance, the female(Lattis) of whom he wishes to make his bride . It may just be that I'm not a fan of physical humour, there were other members of the audience that found it amusing, but I would have prefered something more realistic of a b-movie, or as realistic as a movie like this can be.

Also, some of the jokes tend to carry on just a little too long, which gets tiresome, but these are so few as to hardly warrant a mention, even though I just did. These are really only minor detractions though, as the rest of the film more than makes up for it, there are plenty of laughs to be had from beginning to end. Not only is the dialogue comical, it is the delivery that turns even the most basic of sentences into a chuckle. The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra really does have to be seen to be believed.

Review by Retro

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